We miss plenty of security threats

The annual budget for the federal Transportation Security Administration — the agency formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to protect America’s aviation, mass transit, highway and rail systems — has risen from $4.8 billion in fiscal 2003 to more than $7 billion today. And while that money is supposed to make us safer, the TSA doesn’t always get high marks when it comes to how well it screens passengers and luggage.

Recently, when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the TSA, sent undercover agents into some of the nation’s busiest airports armed with banned weapons and faux explosives, it found that TSA agents let those items through security 95 percent of the time, according to an exclusive report from ABC News. In fact, TSA agents failed to detect the items in 67 out of the 70 tests conducted. In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson notes that “the numbers in these reports never look good out of context” and that he has directed TSA leadership to “immediately revise its standard operating procedures for screening” and to conduct more training.

And this isn’t the first security test TSA agents have failed: In 2013, they let an undercover agent through security at Newark Liberty International Airport with a fake bomb. At the time, the TSA noted that it often makes these covert tests “as difficult as possible” in order to “push the boundaries of our people, processes, and technology.”

What’s more, TSA agents also mistakenly screen passengers, as a report released in September 2014 by the GAO, which evaluated the TSA’s Secure Flight program that helps identify which passengers are higher and lower security risks (TSA PreCheck is a part of this program), concludes. The report states: “TSA information from May 2012 through February 2014 indicates that screening personnel have made errors in implementing Secure Flight determinations at the checkpoint.” And it concludes that “TSA does not have a process for systematically evaluating the root causes of these screening errors” and notes that it took the TSA over six months to compile a list of such errors — and that the list itself was incomplete and contained mistakes.

In a statement following the report’s release, Steve Sadler of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the TSA said Secure Flight “has demonstrated reliability and super-effectiveness” and “continues to evolve.”

Just like the airlines, we’re jacking up our fees

While its spending has leveled off in recent years, that’s still an increase of more than two-thirds. And if you fly a lot, you’re probably feeling the TSA pinch even more than before: In July 2014, the TSA security fee, which is automatically added to airline tickets and pays for things like airport security, more than doubled, to $5.60 per one-way flight and $11.20 for a nonstop round trip.

“People who travel frequently get hit the hardest … those fees add up,” says Mike McCormick, executive director of the Global Business Travel Association. But supporters say the spending does keep us safer: According to the DHS, the screening efforts of the TSA prevented 111,000 dangerous prohibited items, including explosives, firearms, flammables and weapons, from being brought on planes in 2013. What’s more, the number of firearms discovered by the TSA in 2014 increased 22 percent from 2013, according to data from the TSA released Friday — an average of six guns a day were found in carry-on bags. In all, the agency screened nearly 653 million airline passengers in 2014 (over 14 million more than the prior year).

Should the budget be higher? The TSA has more than 55,000 employees, most of whom are transportation security officers. But these front-line screeners earn an average of only $22,000 a year, according to career website Indeed.com. Some experts say the agency might perform better if it paid to attract better-qualified talent.

The report documented 56 cases of TSA staff stealing during that time, and that, in turn, is part of a long-term problem. The TSA acknowledges that between May 1, 2003, and September 2012, a total of 381 agents were terminated for theft. In 2012, two ex-TSA agents pleaded guilty to stealing $40,000 from a passenger’s bag at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. A year before that, a TSA employee pleaded guilty to charges that he regularly stole cash (totaling between $10,000 and $30,000) from fliers while screening their bags at Newark Airport. A number of TSA agents have been caught stealing iPads, and passengers have recently accused agents of stealing everything from cash to jewelry — sometimes right in plain sight as the belongings were going through screening machines.

The TSA notes that it has a “zero tolerance” policy on theft and says the number of its employees fired for theft represents less than ½ of 1 percent of the people employed by the agency over the period in question. Still, the GAO concluded that the “TSA could strengthen monitoring of allegations of employee misconduct.”

We’ll show your weird belongings to the public

Travelers are sometimes a little sketchy and weird — and they prove it with the odd and sometimes illegal things they try to take through airport security. The TSA inspects roughly 1.5 billion bags a year at airports, and confiscates tons of contraband. And lately, as a way of engaging the public, the agency has shown the world some of its weirder finds — via Instagram.

Of course, some weird smuggling efforts get plenty of publicity without the TSA’s Instagram help. Last year, a man tried to pass off “cocaine-chip” cookies as chocolate chip cookies at Newark; another stuffed 7 pounds of the white powder into goat meat chunks and tried to bring it into New York; and still another tried to hide his drugs in bags of custard mix and slide through JFK undetected.

Then there was the woman who tried to bring a human skull — complete with hair, teeth and skin — through airport customs in Miami in 2006; the man who tried to smuggle a severed seal’s head from Denver to Boston in 2004; and even a woman trying to go to Melbourne, Australia, in 2005 wearing a specially designed apron filled with 51 tropical fish. (Read:The 10 worst airport smuggling fails.)

Drugs aren’t our problem

If you’re worried about illegal drugs coming into your town on a jet plane, don’t look to the TSA to stop that influx. “TSA security officers do not search for marijuana or other drugs,” the agency explains on its website. The reason lies in TSA’s mission: “TSA’s screening procedures, which are governed by federal law, are focused on security and are designed to detect potential threats to aviation and passengers,” Feinstein notes.

If an officer happens upon what looks like drugs in someone’s bag, “TSA refers the matter to law enforcement,” Feinstein notes. But experts say that given their other priorities, TSA officers may sometimes look the other way even when they suspect drugs are present. (There have been reports of TSA officers leaving warning notes for passengers carrying marijuana, rather than turning them in, even though the officers could face punishment for taking that approach.)

It’s ultimately up to law enforcement — not the TSA — to determine whether to initiate a criminal investigation for someone suspected of smuggling drugs through an airport, says Feinstein.

We’ll mangle your luggage

The TSA’s security mandate allows screeners to open checked bags, and even to cut the locks on a locked bag; in all, about 5 percent of checked bags are opened during screening, says agency spokesman Ross Feinstein.

Travelers complain that TSA rummaging often leaves their luggage in disarray, with breakable objects broken and items spilled and — a big complaint at the holidays — presents unwrapped and haphazardly rewrapped. Over the 2014 holidays, a number of travelers began posting photos of gifts that got this treatment:

Passengers have also complained that the organization has left their carefully organized bags in disarray. A commenter on the TSA’s blog writes: “it would be nice if they would put things back where they were found such as placing breakable items back in the middle of the bag between the clothes rather than on top of a soft-sided bag so that they can be broken by the baggage handlers,” and another writes that their bag was “quite obviously rummaged through.”

The TSA notes on its website that it is “not liable for damage caused to locked bags that must be opened for security purposes.” Feinstein points out that “if a bag is inspected, the screening is done in view of the public or under closed-circuit television.” Sometimes, of course, when a bag is a mess, it is the fault of airline staff or of a passenger who didn’t pack carefully.

Some airport staff get a free pass on screening

There’s a chance these guys are getting a free pass past the security checkpoint.Shutterstock

Many passengers know the experience of languishing in a screening line while airport staff breeze through unchecked. Indeed, many airport workers — including some baggage handlers, mechanics and others with access to secure areas and planes — aren’t required to routinely go through metal detectors or body scanners.

The TSA says it pre-screens some of these employees before they’re hired, and vets many of them afterward with random checks. But critics say the system leaves serious vulnerabilities.

In December 2014, for example, a ring of five men, including an airline baggage handler, were arrested on suspicion of smuggling guns through airports in Atlanta and New York City. In January, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) demanded that the TSA screen all airport and airline workers for weapons when they report to work each day. In response, the Department of Homeland Security says it has requested “an expedient and comprehensive review of the issues related to the security of the sterile areas at airports nationwide in order to identify all viable means for the Department to address any potential vulnerability.”

We’re underusing our best equipment

Most frequent travelers are familiar with AIT machines — the cylindrical, full-body screeners in which you stand with your hands above your head while a bar whirls around you.

The TSA ranks AITs among its “most capable technology.” But although the devices debuted in 2008 and are now in about 160 airports, only about 50 percent of air passengers in 2013 passed through those machines or other advanced security technology. This sometimes happens when officials want to expedite the security lines, or when AIT machines aren’t available at the airport the passenger is flying from.

The DHS says it relies on other information, screening methods and intelligence-gathering to check on passengers who don’t go through AITs; in all, it says, 85 percent of passengers underwent “enhanced screening” each day in 2013.

We make you play by some strange do-not-pack rules

The list of items you can and can’t bring on an airplane — and the items that might require additional screening — baffles many consumers. When it comes to sharp objects, some are OK and some aren’t, even though all of them could hurt other passengers: You can’t bring scissors in your carry-on, but knitting needles are OK, and you can’t bring an ice pick but ice skates are OK.

If you’re storing booze in your carry-on, make sure it’s one of the approved brands like Grey Goose.Shutterstock

Booze is another confusing area: While bottles of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum and Grey Goose are fine to bring in your checked baggage (up to five liters), Bacardi 151 and John Crow Batty Rum are big no-nos. (This is thanks to their high alcohol content — beverages with more than 70 percent alcohol content can’t go in checked bags because they’re flammable.) And most chemical animal repellents are fine in checked luggage, with the exception of almost all bear repellents.

And just in case you were wondering: It’s fine to bring Grandma’s cremated ashes on board (as long as you’re OK with her going through an X-ray machine), but that pie you baked for Grandpa may require additional screening.

While these rules seem strange, the TSA does have its reasons for them — typically related to how much of a threat the items present to the safety of passengers and crew. And the TSA pointed MarketWatch to this “Can I Bring?” search query, which passengers can use to determine what they can and can’t bring through airport security.

We spend heedlessly on the screening systems

On multiple occasions, the GAO has faulted the TSA for failing to conduct adequate cost-benefit analyses of its screening technologies — including AIT machines and a boarding-pass scanning system — before deploying them.

One of the most high-profile screw-ups: TSA’s “puffer” machines. In 2004, the organization bought more than 200 of the devices, designed to detect explosive particles by blowing air at passengers. The cost of deployment was about $30 million, but the machines frequently required pricey maintenance, and the government has since pulled them from airports.

The TSA says it has recently improved its technology procurement process, and that such changes helped the agency come in $100 million under its allotted budget in fiscal 2013.